Data is increasingly finding its place at the centre of any company’s strategy.

Insights from data collection and analysis can become a competitive advantage not only for web giants or for larger companies, but also for small and medium enterprises.

However, to be able to collect and use large amounts of information, proper IT infrastructure management is needed.

The data centre must be available constantly and allow flexibility when accessing resources, as well as meet security and regulatory compliance requirements. Sounds like a lot to ask, so how do we acquire this kind of infrastructure at a low cost?

The answer lies in outsourcing, and more specifically, the outsourcing of your data collection centre. Here are the main financial advantages of outsourcing:

1. Converting from CAPEX to OPEX

How to choose between the "build or buy" alternative?

As with any investment, the best way is to calculate the ROI (Return on Investment). With regards to costs, you can refer to the Total Cost of Ownership, which is the total cost of building and managing the infrastructure. This includes both capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX).

Outsourcing the data centre radically changes the proportion between these two. It significantly cuts initial investments, thereby reducing capital expenditure.

Operating expenses will also be reduced, through the advantages from sharing costs with others, from human resource to power, as we will see in the following point.

Furthermore, your time horizon will be much shorter. If the in-house development of a data collection infrastructure is an investment to be repaid in the long term (normally about 25 years), renting spaces through outsourcing only requires contracts of 10-15 years.

The rigidity of the whole system will therefore be reduced and the company will be able to continue moving, adapting and anticipating technological changes.

2. Economy of scale, economy of scale, economy of scale!

We can’t emphasise this enough: economy of scale is the key to the convenience of data centre outsourcing.

The colocator, the company that offers hosting services, manages large volumes of data with professionalism and care as its core business. This prioritisation has an immediate impact on management costs, from the purchase of the necessary technology and hardware to acquiring the personnel necessary to guarantee the security of the infrastructure. As you can see, data centre outsourcing enables lower operating costs.

An important variable to consider is the cost of energy. This can vary extremely from country to country. Data center outsourcing can also be an opportunity for you to move your data storage centre to cheaper countries, allowing your company to take advantage of cheaper energy rates. All this can be done without any increase in risk, all through the services of a professional colocator.

There’s also the cost of labor. In this case too, outsourcing can bring significant benefits. You can share and "spread" the cost of security experts across all the clients who use the colocation service.

3. Free up your IT resources

An indirect advantage that many people don’t think about when evaluating an in-house data center or an outsourced one is the possibility for their human IT resources to dedicate time to other problems in the company.

The IT department can then further concentrate on daily business support or even on innovative projects, while still being able to rely on an efficient and effective data collection infrastructure.

The colocator will guarantee business continuity effectively for the entire year and will certify the security and integrity of the information.

In summary, choosing to entrust your data to a colocator brings important financial benefits:

• There’s a significant reduction in capital expenditure;
• Operating costs also decrease due to economies of scale on technological, energy and personnel costs;
• Increase in productivity from the company's IT team, which will then be able to actively support the business as they will have less to worry about;
• Finally, outsourcing your data centre with relatively short rent contracts allows for a more flexible infrastructure.